The Stupid Mistakes Thread

The catchcry for Ubuntu is "Linux for Humans", and we all know Humans are prone to making mistakes. Here's the thread to 'fess up all those really dumb things we do at times (who's game to admit they aren't always as sharp as they like to think?)

I'll get the ball rolling with something crazy I did only last week. I have a set of powered speakers that are connected to my 'puter and also connected to television. They have a remote to control volume,bass, treble and other night when I was very tired and about to go to bed, I grabbed remote that was on desk next to me and tried turning them off without success. Twice I sat remote back on desk while I fiddled with connections on main powered speaker and got frustrated 'coz I couldn't turn 'em off. Then I decided to check remote and realised it was my mobile phone that I was holding... :redface:

I've also been having problems with internet disconnecting when it wakes up from hibernation, I posted a thread and was getting a lot of help from one forumite on this. Here's a copy of my post when I realised just how obtuse I am at times

Lunx said: Sorry I haven't replied a bit sooner. Thanks for your help with this, I finally found the answer as to what problem is. Seems when I first got ADSL, I set up modem using USB cable instead of ethernet (I've never had any training in anything to do with 'puters, learn everything through trial and error, a lot of error). Connection worked fine under Windows, but no wonder poor ol' Tux got a bit confused by it all. I didn't twig to problem 'coz my user manual for modem says USB is for Widows OS, and ethernet for other platform independent OS's. The way I read the following had me thinking I must have had Ethernet, 'coz I took it as meaning USB is for Windows only, and this 'puter connected straight away when I first installed (I changed eth0 to eth1 in Firestarter and firewall was up and running too)

Feel such a goose for stuffing up like this, least problem is now identified and I'll pick up a cable in the morning and connect it properly (just got myself a new 'puter desk, so will be good timing to unplug everything and connect it all up on new desk at same time).

Anyhow, thanks again for trying to help me out (no wonder you were confused by it all, my Ludditeness didn't help either :redface:

Only took me 9 months to discover this, and that was by accident 'coz a friend has same modem as me and rang to see if I had a user guide. I dragged it out and decided I should have a quick read...

So come on, who's willing to admit to doing similar?

I spent hours downloading Windows XP updates and Norton Anti-Virus updates on dial-up when I first started with modern PCs. Not only was I paying 1p a minute for this, I was also paying a totally unnecessary AOL subscription which I thought I had to have at the time. Some months my phone bill was £90 a month- for dial-up! When I first connected to the 'net my entire system crashed because I got hundreds of "pop-ups". This made me paranoid about computer security and I used to religiously defragment, clean-up, scan with the anti-virus and Spybot every week. Also, when I first got a mobile phone, I used to send texts that were more like e-mails. And e-mails that were more like letters. I suppose we all have a lot to learn and no-one has the whole picture, however well informed, clever and computer-savvy they are.

MogBug said: Some months my phone bill was £90 a month- for dial-up!

Know the feeling. When I was greener than I am now and first switched from dial-up to broadband I was so happy to be able to stream radio without it buffering every 20-30 seconds that I'd get up in morning and start streaming instead of putting on perfectly good radio and listening to exactly the same station. Stream would play all day as I had very little understanding of downloads etc. and thought I was getting this for free...

One thing I've come to realise is people tend to learn about the error of their ways far quicker when there's losing $$$ involved.

I was working on a machine for a friend who was having issues deleting files from his machine. When I got to it, I started working through all the typical trouble shooting steps, working to those more and more complicated solutions as time went on..

well after about 5 hours or fighting with this thing, I admitted defeat. As I was loading up my crap to head for the door, I said to myself "Self" I said, "we're not going to let this machine get the best of us. And just out of dumb luck, I right clicked on the recycle bin icon and just emptied the thing...

Leave it to me to leave the simplest solution for the end.. but that sure fixed it right up.